1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technique pertaining to an interactive television capable of selecting interactive TV programs in which a viewer can participate and, more particularly, to a television system for providing application services using the interactive TV set.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the field of television broadcasting in which radio waves are broadcast from broadcasting stations, television programs are selectively received by television receivers capable of receiving the broadcast radio waves, and television pictures of the selected television programs are displayed, teletext is performed by using areas between vertical retrace line intervals of television video signals. In this teletext, a large number of programs are multiplexed on broadcast radio waves and transmitted by the radio waves. On the receiver side, necessary programs are selectively received, converted into television picture signals, and displayed.
By the use of the technology of this teletext, it is possible to provide viewers with an arbitrary large number of text programs or programs containing moving pictures, in addition to regular television programs on broadcasting.
Unfortunately, the present television programs now on broadcasting one-sidedly provides information from broadcasting stations to viewers. For example, a viewer cannot selectively display supplementary information of an article which he or she desires from a plurality of articles introduced in a television program. It is not possible to call out to viewers in a television program, totalize responses from the viewers in real time, or reflect the result of totalization on the television program, either.